Olympic Hockey: U.S. women win interesting warmup with Russian team

Goalie Nicole Hensley of the U.S. adjusts her Statue of Liberty-graced mask, which, after some confusion, is OK to wear in the Olympics. (REUTERS)

GANGNEUNG, South Korea — The clash Tuesday night between Russia and the United States was lopsided on the ice, convivial in the stands and never really happened in the eyes of the International Olympic Committee.

The hockey was breathtaking at times, especially when the puck found the stick of American forward Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson. The mixed zone — the area where the athletes meet the media — was awkward at times, especially when the name Sergei Lavrov surfaced. U.S. goaltender Nicole Hensley produced a shutout, but everyone wanted to know about the images on her goalie mask.

The Pyeongchang Olympics can be confusing, and the factors at play outside the Games hovered over a hockey game. The United States bulldozed the overmatched Olympic Athletes from Russia, 5-0, moving to 2-0 in the tournament before their showdown with rival Canada, the one team preventing the U.S. from claiming superiority in the sport.

Team USA has legitimate gold medal aspirations, and it submitted a dominant performance. Lamoureux-Davidson assisted on Team USA’s first goal and later, in a feat of hockey previously resigned to fantasy, scored the next two in a span of six seconds, the shortest span between goals by one player in Olympic history.

“Don’t think I’ve ever done that before,” Lamoureux-Davidson said.

The entire enterprise carried an unprecedented air. The OAR hockey team boasts 23 of the 168 Olympic Athletes from Russia, the cohort of Russian athletes the IOC allowed in. After the IOC and the World Anti-Doping Agency busted Russia for running a sophisticated, widespread, state-sponsored doping program at the 2014 Sochi Games, the IOC banned six women’s hockey players from the Olympics for life.

“Obviously,” Lamoureux-Davidson said, “we’re aware of what’s been going on with Team Russia.”

That would complicate the game matter no what. A contest between the United States and Russian athletes further muddles matters. The Russian government, aside from its non-Olympic interfaces with America, has repeatedly labeled the evidence cited by the IOC as fabricated, part of a conspiracy driven by the United States to prevent Russia from its rightful dominance.

“It’s a form of competition without scruples because the U.S. team, obviously, are not capable of beating us fairly at sport,” Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said last week.

Afterward, Russian team press manager Evgenii Kurgurgian agreed to translate an interview with Coach Alexei Chistyakov into English. One question concerned whether Lavrov’s comments had changed the tenor of the meeting.

“We think about games,” Chistyakov said. “We prepare for these games. We can talk about Olympic Games and sport. Our goal is to be strong like the Canadian and American teams. We think about this, focus on this only.”

The Americans had to handle a brushfire Tuesday afternoon, hours before the game. A report surfaced that the IOC and Team USA were discussing whether Hensley would be permitted to wear a mask with the Statue of Liberty painted on it, or whether it would be deemed a political statement. As the uproar coalesced, both USA Hockey spokesman Dave Fischer and IOC spokesman Mark Adams called the back-and-forth a “misunderstanding.” Hensley wore her usual mask.

“We’re all good,” Hensley said. “I’m really not sure what happened. I’m just focused on playing the games. Our equipment guys take care of the equipment, and we take care of what’s going on on the ice.”

As for the Statue of Liberty, “I think it’s just a great representation of our country,” Hensley said. “Like I said, we’re just focused on a win tonight. We’re moving on from there.”

Lamoureux-Davidson provided the U.S. breathing room by herself, with a preposterous spasm of offensive hockey. After UNH grad Kacey Bellamy scored Team USA’s first goal, Lamoureux-Davidson banged a rebound into the back of the net to push the team’s lead to 2-0. She proceeded to corral the puck off the ensuing faceoff, break free down the ice, fool the Russian goaltender with a deke and flip a backhand into the cage.